Sidh is presumably referring to the FA’s rules on giving permits to non-EU players, which actually are pretty rigorously and consistently enforced (though occasional exceptions are made). The Thai players Manchester City have signed are nowhere close to meeting the requirements for a permit, hence they’ve been farmed out to the affiliates.
Thaksin does appear to have played his hand pretty brilliantly over the last 9 months or so.
IMHO the long-term relationship of the East-West Center with Thai royalty probably provides a much more solid long-term basis for doing work in Thailand than anything else could.
I hope you see the conflict of interest, Mr Fernquest. Understandably, it is true that in Thailand the Mahidols are the most influential family and therefore a solid foundation. I merely wish to ask if you make the distinction between “solid long-term basis” and “actual quality of the research involved,” because I certainly think being tied up to the Thai monarchy will affect the quality of the latter to a large extent.
“but he couldn’t ‘buy’ English working permits” – Sidh, you speak as if the British bureaucracy is a shining beacon we should aspire to. You’re having a laugh.
An independent commission comes out every week, perhaps, slagging the government or top civil servants.
And people like the FA illustrate the British bureaucracy’s general idiocy, really. They can choose to be “nice” to someone and completely anal to another…
So after many years this practice has arrived in Laos as well and has now been linked up with governmental organizations such as the Lao Women’s Union. Interesting. Probably the influence of reform Buddhism that now flows back into the provinces and has been picked up by some government officials.
I share much of your scepticism, Andrew, and agree that their discourse usually feeds on a sort of conservationist paradigm. Also the fact that the Lao state agencies are involved in this ‘instructional theatre’ as you call it, is highly suspicious. However, I would not make a caricature out of the whole idea despite the fact it promotes an idea of Buddhism and ecology that might come over as a bit naive and hippy-style. There were times in Thailand when the monks who were doing ‘tree-ordinations’ (at the begining of the ‘ecology monks’ movement) were quite courageous in opposing massive logging not by villagers, but by companies and risked their ‘careers’. Phra Prajak Khuttajitto is one example here. For further information see Susan Darlington’s article on the movement:
Obviously, these things become popularised, and indeed transformed into a kind of Adorno-style performative cultural industry at the service of state agencies displaying their will “to protect nature”. It’s not the practice of tree-ordination itself, but the question who does it for which purpose. I suppose some monks in Thailand have moved beyond simple conservation and are not only “betraying villagers” with cheap NGOs-paradigms.
We have used tree ordination as some sort of example for a children’s book on ecology and Buddhism in Laos and I think for simple awareness campaigns it might be useful. Real sustainability, and here I agree with you, is again a different question.
I agree with Republican that Connors is being too precious and all too circumspect. At the same time, I would love to see Republican’s academic writings that display the kind of courage, lack of tendentiousness and so on that he demands of others. Where can I find them?
Not surprised at all. The American habit of sucking up to authoritarian buffoons is legendary. One just might, might, maybe, expect some faculty member there to raise some concerns. Did someone mention pigs flying on this blog recently?
“…seems more like an arm of US foreign policy in the way that it operates.”
Disagree.
There have been some very useful and productive intellectual exchanges between University of Hawaii and Thai universities, like Richard Day an expert in teaching reading (extensive reading).
He taught at ABAC and came up north to give talks at universities in the Chiang Rai area. Talked at Rajabhat but unfortunately the university I taught at didn’t seem to care about low profile teacher development, not prestige enhancing enough, I guess, like GMS meetings. Anyway, if this professor was better supported by the US state department, it would have been great, his host in town even ended up shelling out the 300 baht for the salad he had for dinner.
Kenon Breazeale who is director of research at the East West centre is a fine scholar who publishes articles in the Siam Society journal of lasting value and former professor Walter Vella wrote the history of Rama III.
IMHO the long-term relationship of the East-West Center with Thai royalty probably provides a much more solid long-term basis for doing work in Thailand than anything else could.
“In envisioning an integrated Greater Mekong Sub-region (GMS), the governments of the six riparian countries and the Asian Development Bank (ADB) regard the “connecting of nations” as contributing to the “linking of people” and vice-versa. Strategy papers and other programme documents reiterate that the goals of regionalisation are not only to enhance “connectivity” and “competitiveness” of the region through the improvement of transportation, telecommunication and power systems, but also to foster a greater “sense of community.”
GMS is about as far away from the grassroots and any form of “community” as one could imagine. I was invited to exactly one GMS meeting as a university ajaan/peon. Not fond memories.
University president trying to wiggle out of paying back an ADB loan for expensive science equipment by suggesting that they teach the other poorer GMS countries how to use the equipment and then sharing it with them. Don’t believe anyone fell for it. Overall impression was that the science equipment had been a big waste of money. Later went on and built 60 million baht spa in the back of the university.
Hypothesis: GMS is a “community” of high level bureaucrats, a reason for being, an excuse for staging conferences, attendance at which is distributed as a Bourdieu like party favour among covetous academics who can then publish a paper that no one reads and will consume valuable library shelf space in libraries for the next 100 years, i.e. not very useful.
It would be nice if it was something else, like a grassroots rallying point for poor people or something like that but IMHO **the rural poor are more likely to be standing out in front under police guard holding protest signs**, in a rather futile effort to be heard (passed this scene many times riding to work on my motorcycle). Let me pull the weeds in your gigantic Versaille like garden for 3000 baht a month or something like that.
In general terms, I am inclined to agree. In this case, it is does not seem however that Thaksin is the flagwaver. The army made a much greater effort to whip up patriotic spirit and wasn’t exactly up for burning flags, or criticizing other elements of the Thai trinity.
Thaksin has been exiled for almost a year and a half. I don’t discount the PR value of the wai, but have no reason to believe the emotion was not genuine.
My experience of such groundlickers and flagwavers is that they are usually cram full of bullshit. It’s a crypotfascist habit! I have genuinely found flagburners and effigy burners to be a far more amiable bunch. 😉
I am not running away, just prefer to disagree and engage without using name-calling. Much better to cut through the personal abuse and weigh the arguments.
I’ve cut and pasted from my various posts things that I think Republican could agree with and now seek his endorsement, in his own name. There is not a single word of criticism of an elected government or of Samak – not even of Samak’s 1976 comments and Tak Bai comments which were necessary according to Republican in order for Samak to prove his royalist credentials. Republican oddly thinks Samak’s statements were a smart strategy to win favour with the royalists while those such as me who criticise the monarchy are identified with royalist dictatorship)
I ask Republican to take a look at the pastings below and say in his own name that he can generally agree with them. If he can not, then he should stop asking people in Thailand to say these things, and stop identifying my position as pro-royalist.
The Pastings:
“I have no problem in arguing that monarchy is illegitimate from a political perspective that is based on equality of human beings”
“In contrast to Thaksin’s relatively brief rule, the monarchy has risen and consolidated its position through close relations with authoritarian regimes over several generations, and has also adapted itself to semi-democratic forms of power (though this has hardly been a smooth transition). In both contexts, it has been witness to terrible atrocities, and I would have no problem in its role being examined..
“[I] support inquiries into all the horrible events that scatter Thailand’s modern political history, including those listed by Somsak, and for such inquiries to cover all relevant actors, including the monarchy.”
In the 3Cs of the ADB’s vision for the GMS (Connectivity, Competitiveness and Community), the least item would be the last. It is up to NGOs (like Rosalia’s former affiliation) to bank roll the imagineering and bring about that seemingly nebulous idea of “community” in the face of wide disparities in income and historical stereotypes. A major stumbling blocks to achieving this vision is of course the fact that this was an imagination concocted by the ADB to create another potential growth area for investors, in terms of raw materials, cheap labor and market, of which the countries “bought” though not without an early reluctance. That reluctance seems to have waned since after all the whole grand idea of the GMS is bankrolled to a large degree by the ADB. It was also difficult to be a “party pooper” in the “end of history” situation where in, after all, in the case of Vietnam had defeated the great USof A. It was also difficult to feel excluded then from the developmentalist determined game of international donor agencies when the neo-liberal model became the basis of growth, and of course with the demonstration effect of Thailand’s boom in the early 90s.
Another irritant in this regional project and achieving this elusive sense of community is the disproportionate economic levels of countries. Thailand clearly has shown visibly that it wants to control the terms of development of the GMS by leading investments (labor intensive manufacturing and service industries) in other countries (as well as not very sustainable development type mega projects such as the Nam Theun II dam, and agribusiness in Laos.). China as well is implicated. Behind the smiles and handshakes, it remains to be seen in what terms a sense of “community” can be encouraged. There is very little educational and academic exchanges at the moment that would be important to bridge such gaps in cultural understanding and reduce the reservoir of mistrust.
Considering this “regime of images”, in December before the elections, I expected PMThaksin’s return to be a much grander affair, hundreds of thousands of supporters and live concerts – maybe even the whole triumphant Manchester City team with either the League Cup, FA Cup or a fourth spot in the Premiership. Circumstances seemed to have changed to make PMThaksin decide on an earlier return (MC’s and PMSamak’s performance, Yuth “the fridge” red card etc…etc…)… I won’t dwell any more on that – but there is a cause to celebrate considering the court cases against PMThaksin will now progress (even if power and money may hold sway again at the end of the day, but as BangkokDan noted, the media and civil society will follow this very, very closely). On this occasion, it is about the “regime of images” as AW suggested.
Of all past and present Thai politians, only PMThaksin actually mastered this “regime of images” on par with the world’s best (American politics comes to mind as Srithanonchai noted). The buying of Manchester City FC alone makes for an excellent case study. I will give just one example of this – a few months ago, Sven-Goran Ericksson, MC’s manager flew to Thailand to buy three promising Thai national footballers, which made headlines in the country. The question is where are they now? Last I heard they were farmed out to the Swiss league but may still not get to play (I have no doubt, if PMThaksin has his way, they’ll feature in some matches – but he couldn’t ‘buy’ English working permits)…
Yesterday on PMThaksin’s return to Thailand, he flew in with two MC players – goalkeeper Kasper Schmeichel and midfielder Kelvin Etuhu. Schmeichel has this to say:
“He is a very genuine guy with very genuine feelings for the club. City lie very close to his heart and the way he has supported the club since he came in has proved that.”
The coup-makers and their constitution writers didn’t seem to think that at all – and we have a constitution that is designed narrowly to clamp down on one man’s demonstrated excesses. It is a less democratic constitution for a less democratic leader. Base on that analysis, I maintain that it is common wisdom that PMThaksin was expected to come back to politics all along… The fact that the party wasn’t that big (at least as I have visualized it) already speaks volumes.
Dog Lover, don’t be surprised. This has been happening since the US propped up dictatorial Thai generals like Sarit and the monarchy since cold war days!
Facebook 
Twitter 
Soundcloud 
Youtube 
Rss
The return of the king
Sidh is presumably referring to the FA’s rules on giving permits to non-EU players, which actually are pretty rigorously and consistently enforced (though occasional exceptions are made). The Thai players Manchester City have signed are nowhere close to meeting the requirements for a permit, hence they’ve been farmed out to the affiliates.
Thaksin does appear to have played his hand pretty brilliantly over the last 9 months or so.
In very good company
Thaksin was kissing the airport. He loves that airport as if it were his own.
East-West Center to host Thai royal visit
I hope you see the conflict of interest, Mr Fernquest. Understandably, it is true that in Thailand the Mahidols are the most influential family and therefore a solid foundation. I merely wish to ask if you make the distinction between “solid long-term basis” and “actual quality of the research involved,” because I certainly think being tied up to the Thai monarchy will affect the quality of the latter to a large extent.
The return of the king
“but he couldn’t ‘buy’ English working permits” – Sidh, you speak as if the British bureaucracy is a shining beacon we should aspire to. You’re having a laugh.
An independent commission comes out every week, perhaps, slagging the government or top civil servants.
And people like the FA illustrate the British bureaucracy’s general idiocy, really. They can choose to be “nice” to someone and completely anal to another…
Tree huggers on the move!
So after many years this practice has arrived in Laos as well and has now been linked up with governmental organizations such as the Lao Women’s Union. Interesting. Probably the influence of reform Buddhism that now flows back into the provinces and has been picked up by some government officials.
I share much of your scepticism, Andrew, and agree that their discourse usually feeds on a sort of conservationist paradigm. Also the fact that the Lao state agencies are involved in this ‘instructional theatre’ as you call it, is highly suspicious. However, I would not make a caricature out of the whole idea despite the fact it promotes an idea of Buddhism and ecology that might come over as a bit naive and hippy-style. There were times in Thailand when the monks who were doing ‘tree-ordinations’ (at the begining of the ‘ecology monks’ movement) were quite courageous in opposing massive logging not by villagers, but by companies and risked their ‘careers’. Phra Prajak Khuttajitto is one example here. For further information see Susan Darlington’s article on the movement:
http://ccbs.ntu.edu.tw/FULLTEXT/JR-ADM/susan.htm
Obviously, these things become popularised, and indeed transformed into a kind of Adorno-style performative cultural industry at the service of state agencies displaying their will “to protect nature”. It’s not the practice of tree-ordination itself, but the question who does it for which purpose. I suppose some monks in Thailand have moved beyond simple conservation and are not only “betraying villagers” with cheap NGOs-paradigms.
We have used tree ordination as some sort of example for a children’s book on ecology and Buddhism in Laos and I think for simple awareness campaigns it might be useful. Real sustainability, and here I agree with you, is again a different question.
The electorate and the “acute state of Thai politics”
I agree with Republican that Connors is being too precious and all too circumspect. At the same time, I would love to see Republican’s academic writings that display the kind of courage, lack of tendentiousness and so on that he demands of others. Where can I find them?
East-West Center to host Thai royal visit
Not surprised at all. The American habit of sucking up to authoritarian buffoons is legendary. One just might, might, maybe, expect some faculty member there to raise some concerns. Did someone mention pigs flying on this blog recently?
In very good company
Remember Seksan in that awful movie portraying his life a few years back? He sucked up some dirt as well.
East-West Center to host Thai royal visit
“…seems more like an arm of US foreign policy in the way that it operates.”
Disagree.
There have been some very useful and productive intellectual exchanges between University of Hawaii and Thai universities, like Richard Day an expert in teaching reading (extensive reading).
He taught at ABAC and came up north to give talks at universities in the Chiang Rai area. Talked at Rajabhat but unfortunately the university I taught at didn’t seem to care about low profile teacher development, not prestige enhancing enough, I guess, like GMS meetings. Anyway, if this professor was better supported by the US state department, it would have been great, his host in town even ended up shelling out the 300 baht for the salad he had for dinner.
Kenon Breazeale who is director of research at the East West centre is a fine scholar who publishes articles in the Siam Society journal of lasting value and former professor Walter Vella wrote the history of Rama III.
IMHO the long-term relationship of the East-West Center with Thai royalty probably provides a much more solid long-term basis for doing work in Thailand than anything else could.
Visions of a Mekong “community”
Visions of fat expense accounts…
“In envisioning an integrated Greater Mekong Sub-region (GMS), the governments of the six riparian countries and the Asian Development Bank (ADB) regard the “connecting of nations” as contributing to the “linking of people” and vice-versa. Strategy papers and other programme documents reiterate that the goals of regionalisation are not only to enhance “connectivity” and “competitiveness” of the region through the improvement of transportation, telecommunication and power systems, but also to foster a greater “sense of community.”
GMS is about as far away from the grassroots and any form of “community” as one could imagine. I was invited to exactly one GMS meeting as a university ajaan/peon. Not fond memories.
University president trying to wiggle out of paying back an ADB loan for expensive science equipment by suggesting that they teach the other poorer GMS countries how to use the equipment and then sharing it with them. Don’t believe anyone fell for it. Overall impression was that the science equipment had been a big waste of money. Later went on and built 60 million baht spa in the back of the university.
Hypothesis: GMS is a “community” of high level bureaucrats, a reason for being, an excuse for staging conferences, attendance at which is distributed as a Bourdieu like party favour among covetous academics who can then publish a paper that no one reads and will consume valuable library shelf space in libraries for the next 100 years, i.e. not very useful.
It would be nice if it was something else, like a grassroots rallying point for poor people or something like that but IMHO **the rural poor are more likely to be standing out in front under police guard holding protest signs**, in a rather futile effort to be heard (passed this scene many times riding to work on my motorcycle). Let me pull the weeds in your gigantic Versaille like garden for 3000 baht a month or something like that.
In very good company
In general terms, I am inclined to agree. In this case, it is does not seem however that Thaksin is the flagwaver. The army made a much greater effort to whip up patriotic spirit and wasn’t exactly up for burning flags, or criticizing other elements of the Thai trinity.
Thaksin has been exiled for almost a year and a half. I don’t discount the PR value of the wai, but have no reason to believe the emotion was not genuine.
In very good company
My experience of such groundlickers and flagwavers is that they are usually cram full of bullshit. It’s a crypotfascist habit! I have genuinely found flagburners and effigy burners to be a far more amiable bunch. 😉
The electorate and the “acute state of Thai politics”
I am not running away, just prefer to disagree and engage without using name-calling. Much better to cut through the personal abuse and weigh the arguments.
I’ve cut and pasted from my various posts things that I think Republican could agree with and now seek his endorsement, in his own name. There is not a single word of criticism of an elected government or of Samak – not even of Samak’s 1976 comments and Tak Bai comments which were necessary according to Republican in order for Samak to prove his royalist credentials. Republican oddly thinks Samak’s statements were a smart strategy to win favour with the royalists while those such as me who criticise the monarchy are identified with royalist dictatorship)
I ask Republican to take a look at the pastings below and say in his own name that he can generally agree with them. If he can not, then he should stop asking people in Thailand to say these things, and stop identifying my position as pro-royalist.
The Pastings:
“I have no problem in arguing that monarchy is illegitimate from a political perspective that is based on equality of human beings”
“In contrast to Thaksin’s relatively brief rule, the monarchy has risen and consolidated its position through close relations with authoritarian regimes over several generations, and has also adapted itself to semi-democratic forms of power (though this has hardly been a smooth transition). In both contexts, it has been witness to terrible atrocities, and I would have no problem in its role being examined..
“[I] support inquiries into all the horrible events that scatter Thailand’s modern political history, including those listed by Somsak, and for such inquiries to cover all relevant actors, including the monarchy.”
Signed: Republican (Prefer Real Name).
The electorate and the “acute state of Thai politics”
Daniel Ten Kate says in Asia Sentinel: “It’s hard to find an analyst who doesn’t think Thaksin’s tenure as prime minister was rife with conflict of interest. “
http://www.asiasentinel.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1074&Itemid=31
Do I win a prize for finding one?
Tree huggers on the move!
[…] no fan of tree ordination, but ground kissing is another thing altogether. When ex-PM Thaksin arrived in Bangkok yesterday he […]
The return of the king
[…] Andrew Walker, The return of the king, New […]
Visions of a Mekong “community”
In the 3Cs of the ADB’s vision for the GMS (Connectivity, Competitiveness and Community), the least item would be the last. It is up to NGOs (like Rosalia’s former affiliation) to bank roll the imagineering and bring about that seemingly nebulous idea of “community” in the face of wide disparities in income and historical stereotypes. A major stumbling blocks to achieving this vision is of course the fact that this was an imagination concocted by the ADB to create another potential growth area for investors, in terms of raw materials, cheap labor and market, of which the countries “bought” though not without an early reluctance. That reluctance seems to have waned since after all the whole grand idea of the GMS is bankrolled to a large degree by the ADB. It was also difficult to be a “party pooper” in the “end of history” situation where in, after all, in the case of Vietnam had defeated the great USof A. It was also difficult to feel excluded then from the developmentalist determined game of international donor agencies when the neo-liberal model became the basis of growth, and of course with the demonstration effect of Thailand’s boom in the early 90s.
Another irritant in this regional project and achieving this elusive sense of community is the disproportionate economic levels of countries. Thailand clearly has shown visibly that it wants to control the terms of development of the GMS by leading investments (labor intensive manufacturing and service industries) in other countries (as well as not very sustainable development type mega projects such as the Nam Theun II dam, and agribusiness in Laos.). China as well is implicated. Behind the smiles and handshakes, it remains to be seen in what terms a sense of “community” can be encouraged. There is very little educational and academic exchanges at the moment that would be important to bridge such gaps in cultural understanding and reduce the reservoir of mistrust.
The return of the king
Considering this “regime of images”, in December before the elections, I expected PMThaksin’s return to be a much grander affair, hundreds of thousands of supporters and live concerts – maybe even the whole triumphant Manchester City team with either the League Cup, FA Cup or a fourth spot in the Premiership. Circumstances seemed to have changed to make PMThaksin decide on an earlier return (MC’s and PMSamak’s performance, Yuth “the fridge” red card etc…etc…)… I won’t dwell any more on that – but there is a cause to celebrate considering the court cases against PMThaksin will now progress (even if power and money may hold sway again at the end of the day, but as BangkokDan noted, the media and civil society will follow this very, very closely). On this occasion, it is about the “regime of images” as AW suggested.
Of all past and present Thai politians, only PMThaksin actually mastered this “regime of images” on par with the world’s best (American politics comes to mind as Srithanonchai noted). The buying of Manchester City FC alone makes for an excellent case study. I will give just one example of this – a few months ago, Sven-Goran Ericksson, MC’s manager flew to Thailand to buy three promising Thai national footballers, which made headlines in the country. The question is where are they now? Last I heard they were farmed out to the Swiss league but may still not get to play (I have no doubt, if PMThaksin has his way, they’ll feature in some matches – but he couldn’t ‘buy’ English working permits)…
Yesterday on PMThaksin’s return to Thailand, he flew in with two MC players – goalkeeper Kasper Schmeichel and midfielder Kelvin Etuhu. Schmeichel has this to say:
“He is a very genuine guy with very genuine feelings for the club. City lie very close to his heart and the way he has supported the club since he came in has proved that.”
The coup-makers and their constitution writers didn’t seem to think that at all – and we have a constitution that is designed narrowly to clamp down on one man’s demonstrated excesses. It is a less democratic constitution for a less democratic leader. Base on that analysis, I maintain that it is common wisdom that PMThaksin was expected to come back to politics all along… The fact that the party wasn’t that big (at least as I have visualized it) already speaks volumes.
The return of the king
Jon, if you were to praise somebody every time they do something they’re supposed to, you’ll be out of breath really soon.
“You’re a hero, floor cleaner! You’ve cleaned the floor!”
“Let me drink to you, barman, you’ve poured a perfect pint!”
“Credit to the media! You actually managed to report significant, relevant news without bias and with actual evidence!” Hang on a minute…
East-West Center to host Thai royal visit
Dog Lover, don’t be surprised. This has been happening since the US propped up dictatorial Thai generals like Sarit and the monarchy since cold war days!
They are (as in continue to be) chums!